Alexander Winfield is not a magician, and yet he can take wood, string and a scrap of fabric and make it into a little boy who can move real humans to tears.

Mr. Winfield is a puppeteer currently working in Canada. Last week he returned to the Island to share the magic of puppetry with local children at a special workshop held at the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSoA) Gallery.

The workshops were for children and adults involved with mentor programmes such as Big Brothers & Big Sisters and YouthNet.

"I just want the kids and their mentors to have a good time," Mr. Winfield said.

"Sometimes there are one or two kids who really get into it and want to look into puppetry more.

"I consider puppetry a very interesting art form. It doesn't get the credit it deserves in the world. There are forms of puppetry everywhere."

During the workshop, he gave a brief history of puppetry. Then he taught the kids and their mentors how to build puppets out of simple materials.

After making their own puppets, the kids and adults wrote and performed their own puppet shows.

Mr. Winfield said puppetry had an amazing power to move people.

"I have seen puppeteers who can really take people into another world," said Mr. Winfield. "If I can get the human audience to sympathise with a little boy made of trashy fabric, and get them to cry when he cries, then I have really got it in terms of telling the story."

He has given workshops in Canada for children with various challenges.

"I worked with a company called Clay & Paper which did workshops for children from depressed areas of Toronto," he said. "Puppetry does a lot. There is something about focusing on an object outside of yourself and giving it character that is very therapeutic."

He said sometimes kids complain about the work it takes to build the puppet, but once they have performed the show, they get very excited.

"They say 'this is the best thing ever'," he said. "We have done a few workshops for mentally handicapped children.

"It was a huge thing for them. I don't think they had ever done something like that before.

"In terms of helping people out, puppetry works well. People come together to discuss and plan something with other people. It teaches them all sorts of skills."

Mr. Winfield has been a full-time puppeteer in Canada for about four years, and is rapidly making a name for himself around the world.

"I loved puppets as a child," he said. "As an adult, I started to get involved in puppetry after I went to a puppet theatre in Thailand.

"They were using the bunraku technique of puppetry. This uses a fully articulated puppet. You have three men manipulating a puppet at one time.

"The story was all about Hanuman, the white monkey god. It was ridiculously incredible puppetry.

"The show was so engaging and vibrant. That rekindled my love for puppetry. That was about seven or eight years ago."

Mr. Winfield was so inspired, he went to Quebec, Canada to learn puppetry.

He took lessons with Mathieu René, a famous Montreal-based puppet builder who calls himself a "creaturiste".

"He taught me different techniques including papier mâché," said Mr. Winfield. "I make all my puppets out of papier mâché but I don't use newspapers. I use other materials to make them stronger and make them last for longer."

Mr. Winfield has now been a full-time puppeteer for four years.

"I have been working in theatres, and I do a lot of street puppetry in Toronto," he said. "I do street puppetry for parks and for festivals and what not."

He recently returned from Oxford, England where he designed, built and performed a theatre puppet show called 'All Hail Ye Mighty Lords of Nowhere'.

Mr. Winfield said that like most puppeteers he has been inspired by the late puppeteer Jim Henson, of Muppets fame.

"He actually started off wanting to get into television and decided that puppetry was the best way to do it," said Mr. Winfield. "But he was very good at it. You fall in love with Kermit or Miss Piggy, even though they are just pieces of fluff stitched together. That is the stuff I really admire.

"There are a lot of remarkable puppeteers out there. I work with a Quebec company called Les Sage Fous.

"They do remarkable street shows again using papier mâché techniques."

He makes many of his own puppets out of simple items like fabric scraps, bits of wooden block, and paper. He also sometimes gets puppets built for him, or buys them.

"I collect antique puppets," he said. "Currently, I am looking for some antique Punch and Judy puppets."

Mr. Winfield said he is back and forth to Bermuda during the year.

"I have a few puppets inspired by the insects and animals of Bermuda," he said. "I did a play called 'Tales from A Grim Archipelago' which is a gothic interpretation of Bermudian life. I have been meaning to bring it down here, but it hasn't worked out yet."

His favourite self-built puppet is a life-sized bird-like puppet called Horace.

"I used it in a festival in Quebec," he said. "It is a hip puppet. He connects to my hips and my legs are his legs.

"My left hand is his hand. He is very expressive because he is so large."

Although the bird looks a little frightening, Mr. Winfield said kids are usually okay with him.

"It is usually teenage girls that start screaming," he said. "With kids younger than ten, ninety percent of the time they can handle it. They are usually more curious than anything else. What is creepy is learned."